European Union: Key Moments

Enforcing Democracy

In the 1980s, Greece, Spain and Portugal, which had emerged from dictatorships, joined the EU. Their membership was contingent on becoming democratic. Similarly, the EU enforced democracy when former Communist countries in Eastern Europe -- including Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia -- joined in 2004. (Pictured here, the Berlin Wall separating East and West Germany fell in 1989.)